


Inconsistent Angel Things

by arjache



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 05:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arjache/pseuds/arjache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late at night - when you’re not wearing much, and you’re crouching over your computer as you lay down another track - that’s when the spot on your back where your wings <em>aren’t</em> bothers you the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inconsistent Angel Things

Late at night - when you’re not wearing much, and you’re crouching over your computer as you lay down another track - that’s when the spot on your back where your wings _aren’t_ bothers you the most.

You were a Time player, before the game ended, and that meant you were used to being subdivided ad infinitum. But nothing had prepared you for being reunited with all your other selves after the game ended. Merged. Unified as one.

You remember being a sprite, and you remember not being a sprite, and now you aren’t quite sure what to do with yourself in this human body. This human body with the familiar bits you were never all that happy with to begin with, but also some new sources of unhappiness, because after three years with wings (and yet those same three years without them), the place where they used to be just doesn’t feel right any more.

This incomprehensible body of yours.

It’s not so bad during the day. Your binder seems to help, much to your amusement. Adding a backpack helps even more; pretty much anything that puts uniform pressure on the right spot along your shoulder blades does. There’s something about the weight distribution at that point; a familiar tension where your muscles share your misplaced memories.

Sometimes it’s just right and it almost all makes sense again.

But sometimes it’s not, and those times are maddening.

It’s bad enough when your trapezius muscles are all twitching and confused and not sure what to make of themselves. You’re not quite sure how the hell your muscles worked before, when you were a sprite; human anatomy isn’t built for angel wings. But it worked, somehow, thanks to the game’s magic, and now and then your body loudly complains that it doesn’t work that way any more, and you shift and fidget uncomfortably, rolling your shoulders back and forth, trying to find the right set of stretches that will get everything to relax again. Sometimes you find it. Other times it takes you hours to feel settled again.

The worst, though, is when you crouch forward and could almost swear you can feel the wing tips under your skin, threatening, yearning to break free again. As if at any moment they might pop through your skin and unfurl. It fucking _itches_. Little tiny tufts of feathers poking at your skin from the inside.

It’s times like those that Rose reminds you that it’s just phantom pain, and you concede that no, there probably is nothing physically there, just memories of a game construct that you’re not sure ever technically existed as biological reality in the first place. But that’s hardly better, because that makes it all something perpetually just out of your reach. Something you don’t know how to fix.

You had phantom pain after you lost a wing to Jack, too, but at least then you had the scars to prove it, until it grew back. You remember how _that_ itched, too, and have to remind yourself that this time is different; this time you don’t expect they will grow back.

One night you actually yowl about it on Pesterchum long enough that Rose marches herself over to your place. You notice the coolness of her hands as she helps you into bed, the way her lips purse with concern when you flinch as your back hits the sheet and your bewildered nerves protest loudly. The way she waits for you to get comfortable on your side instead, and then slides in beside you in bed. Any other person would do the sensible thing and get in front of you, avoid the sensitive area altogether, but not Rose Lalonde. She sidles up to your back, carefully, deliberately. And then she kisses you there, ever so softly, her lips not where your wings used to be, but right _under_ them. Acknowledging what used to be and what, in a way, still is. Two kisses, one under each, and then a third at the small of your back, and there she curls up, as if nestled in your downy feathers.

And then, and only then, do you feel yourself relax.

She starts coming over more often after that. It’s nice sharing a bed with someone who knows your body so well, who knows what to touch and what not to. It’s nice sharing a bed with someone who understands what it’s like to have a difficult relationship with your body. It’s not just that you’re both trans, though that certainly helps. It’s that both of your bodies are minefields, and in the negative space of your touch you map out your respective battle scars.

Late at night - when you’re not wearing much, and you’re lying there with Rose at your side - that’s when you’re grateful you can still feel the weight of your wings.

Because it also means you can feel her cuddled up against them.


End file.
